CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 16^ 



beforn, syngen alle the tyme that this riche man etethe ; and whan he eteth 

 no more of his cours, thanne othere 5 and 5 of fair damyseles bryngen him 

 his seconde cours, alle weys syngynge as thei did beforn ; and so thei don 

 contynuelly every day to the ende of his mete ; and in this manner he 

 ledethe his lif ; and so did thei before him that weren his auncestores, and so 

 schalle thei that comen aftre him with outen doynge of ony dedes of armes, 

 but lyven evere more thus in ese as a swyn that is fedde in sty for to ben 

 made fatte." 



From the preceding analytical sketches, the archaeologist may eli- 

 cit motives to institute an attentive perusal of Sir John Maunde- 

 ville's Voiage and Travaile, for the purpose of discriminating 

 such of his facts and observations as have been confirmed by subse- 

 quent experience, from the flourishes of fiction wherewithal his vene- 

 rable chorography is liberally arrayed. With regard to the marvel- 

 lous stories so readily credited by our author, and the great respect 

 he pays to every relic, as the Editor has judiciously observed, these 

 are not matters of surprize when we consider the enthusiasm of a 

 zealous Roman catholic of the fourteenth century. He was treading 

 on sacred ground, and credited, because he desired to credit, every 

 idle story that came floating before his view. We may grieve over 

 the prostration of a vigorous intellect, in conning the Knighte's grete 

 meraycles ; but we need not express astonishment nor employ repre- 

 hension, on discovering the credulity of a romantic pilgrim, when we 

 reflect that even his tales of saints and monsters, of bugbears and 

 miracles, were originally the elaborate fabrications of " Ghostly 

 Fathers" to whose charge the secular and religious education of 

 Christendom was then confided- Throughout his " Tretys" are in- 

 terspersed many practical directions which would prove useful to 

 others afterwards engaged in the same course of peregrination : its 

 extraordinary popularity, indeed, as evinced by the numerous M.S.S. 

 and printed editions of his Travaile, in various languages, most 

 clearly shows that the book was considered both entertaining and in- 

 structive : nevertheless, in all its sections, we may discern the inge- 

 nuous traveller's powerfulness to detect the detestable contrivances 

 whereby the priesthood laboured, in those days, to paralyze the di- 

 vinely elastic energies of man's immortal mind. 



VOL. X., NO. xxviir. 22 



